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" To me, writing is like singing in the most inappropriate place, singing as beautifully as you can on a bus or in a bank, where people least expect it, and trying to get them to want to listen. "

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" My best hope is that Libya turns into a peaceful, sensible country that has all the things my father and lots of others have been calling for: independence of the courts and press, a protected and democratic constitution, with different parties involved in a healthy and open debate. "

Hisham Matar

Hope

Best

Debate

" I am longing to see Libya rejoin the world as the internationalist Mediterranean country that it was. "

" Some of the most powerful memories are those when you are very, very young. Adult life is seen through the reflection of complex, rational thought. "

" We need a father to rage against. "

" Libyans are deeply unsettled by Gaddafi and his regime's careless contempt for human life. The dictatorship is willing to employ any methods necessary to remain in power. "

" For an overwhelming majority of my life, my country has been a source of pain, fear, and embarrassment. "

" There's always a problem when you write, something you're trying to resolve, and sometimes a view can be inspiring. "

" Civil war is a national crisis and also a private trauma: We suffer it collectively and in isolation. "

" The space where writing happens is a unique space that's hard to define, and when you're kicked out of it because you're travelling or distracted, it seems so elusive and hard to defend because you yourself doubt whether it existed. "

" Turgenev's achievement lies in how he succeeded, in spite of himself, his country, and his time, in exempting his work from public duty. This has given it that unnameable quality that makes every sentence true, every silence trustworthy. "

" Making something of loss is, on some level, satisfying. "

" Like all novelists, I'm interested in the filters between reality and the imagination. "

Hisham Matar

Imagination

Interested

" When a dictatorship imprisons someone or makes them disappear, it's actually a very strategic move. We forget that. It's not as senseless as it seems. It's a way to silence someone, but also it's a way to silence their family as well, out of fear, and society by extension. "

" From my family alone, Qaddafi had imprisoned five men. "

" Political dictatorships take possession not just of money and belongings but of narrative. "

" I lost my father when I was 19, so the majority of my life has been under this cloud, and I have been full of the intention to find out what happened. "

" Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides. "

" Books have shown me horror and beauty. "

Hisham Matar

Books

Shown

" Gaddafi tried to give a masterclass to men like the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, on how to crush a civilian uprising. "

Hisham Matar

Crush

Give

" It is evident that Qaddafi is mentally unwell. Like Richard III, he has barricaded himself within lies. "

Hisham Matar

Lies

Within

" When I was 12 years old, living in Cairo, my parents enrolled me in the American school. Most of the Americans there appeared oddly stifled, determined to remain, if not physically then sentimentally, back in the United States. "

Hisham Matar

Living

American

" The romantic idea of the penniless writer is false. It's terrible. I hated being in debt. I hated the anxiety of not knowing whether we could pay our rent that month. Thankfully, I had a wife who was very supportive and had faith and shared my madness. "

" Dreams have consequences. "

Hisham Matar

Dreams

Consequences

" When you've been living in hope for a long time as I have, suddenly you realize that certainty is far more desirable than hope. "

" Grenfell, the building set on fire with the help of its own face, is a scene of a complex injustice: one that is moral, economic, political, and aesthetic. Not only was the cladding unsafe, it was ugly; not only was it ugly, it was untrue both to the architecture of the building it covered and untrue to its responsibility to human safety. "

" I've never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer. "

Hisham Matar

Been

Never

" Whenever I was encouraged by my elders to pick up a book, I was often told, 'Read so as to know the world.' And it is true; books have invited me into different countries, states of mind, social conditions and historical epochs; they have offered me a place at the most unusual gatherings. "

Hisham Matar

Book

Mind

" I think, ultimately, I am a sensualist and an aesthete. "

Hisham Matar

Ultimately

I Am

" Ivan Turgenev's novella 'First Love' is one of the most perfect things ever written. "

" As a young boy in Libya, it was hard to escape the conclusion that the women were the most feeling and most functional part of society. "